A while back, while touring Europe on the Lindsey Stirling lighting
crew, I was asked a very pointed question; “What kind of drummer are you?” My
initial response was something about being a very visual, performance driven
drummer. Not that this is untrue but not the entire story. See, its difficult
to describe my own style of drumming simply because its just something I’ve
always done. But now as I embark on making one of the biggest decisions I’ve
ever faced, I’m forced to come to grips with these ideas. Normally the easiest
way to explain this would be to show, but as I was working as a lighting/video
technician on the tour there was no real outlet for drumming.
I’m the type of drummer that loves putting on a good show
but not at the expense of the musicality. I’m also a strong believer that all
music needs to be great is a good bit of heart and soul, especially electronic
music. Execution is important but not the end all. A certain amount of
precision is highly important but what stands out as even more necessary is
musicality, adding that little bit of breathe to every beat is something that
can’t be replicated by a machine.
Although there are computer programs that have come close to
recreating human-like performances, there are far too many drummers out there
that sound like drum machines. No dynamics no breathing room in their
performances. Some would say that playing to a click track, backing tracks, and
pre-programmed parts limits your musicianship but I say if you approach it with
a creative mind the range of opportunities to make music with a heartbeat is
unparalleled.
As drummers, it is not our job to become the machine. Far
too often we are compared to metronomes in our time keeping, this is false. A
metronome is a great tool for keeping perfect time but our job is not to be
perfec. Our job is to understand how the time works, to flow in between each
beat seamlessly, to give the music its heartbeat; this is done by spending
countless hours a day for years with a metronome gaining a complete
comprehensive understanding of exactly where every beat lands. If the music
needs to push a little on a chorus or perhaps it needs a little more pull back
on the verse or bridge then we can control how much this happens.
It’s really all about listening to the music and serving its
needs. Some would say that performing the same tunes every day would get
boring. I say to you, “find a new angle.” There’s always a new way of doing
things that won’t compromise the integrity of the original. If you’re really
bored then try live triggering some of the backing parts, or you know…. play
the parts on the record as they were intended.
Recently I’ve been trying to recreate a few Pop/R&B
tunes and there’s nothing more complicated than playing all of the programmed
parts on a song. Drummers have taken a back seat to producers in the
progression of drumming. Producers create these uniquely creative rhythmic soundscapes
and what do drummers do with it, they sit back and take the “boom, crack, boom,
crack” approach. There is so much syncopation and independence to be had within
many of these tracks, why not take the musically challenging road and reproduce
the track as-is instead of allowing so much control be put into the circuits of
a computer.
With my next project, this will become clear.
